Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero: The Formative Years (American Studies Series) - Hardcover

Jacobs, Wilbur R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0292724675 ISBN 13: 9780292724679

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 1991

Synopsis

A historian who lived the kind of history he wrote, Francis Parkman is a major—and controversial—figure in American historiography. His narrative style, while popular with readers wanting a "good story," has raised many questions with professional historians. Was Parkman writing history or historical fiction? Did he color historical figures with his own heroic self-image? Was his objectivity compromised by his "unbending, conservative, Brahmin" values? These are some of the many issues that Wilbur Jacobs treats in this thought-provoking study.

Jacobs carefully considers the "apprenticeship" of Francis Parkman, first spent in facing the rigors of the Oregon Trail and later in struggling to write his histories despite a mysterious, frequently incapacitating illness. He shows how these events allowed Parkman to create a heroic self-image, which impelled his desire for fame as a historian and influenced his treatment of both the "noble" and the "savage" characters of his histories.

In addition to assessing the influence of Parkman's development and personality on his histories, Jacobs comments on Parkman's relationship to basic social and cultural issues of the nineteenth century. These include the slavery question, Native American issues, expansion of the suffrage to new groups, including women, and anti-Catholicism.

About this title

About the Author:

Wilbur R. Jacobs (1918–1998) was Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0292724675
• ISBN 13: 9780292724679
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 255